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Friday, February 20, 2009

Rick Santelli may be highly frustrated at the moment, (SEE VIDEO) but his concern may be quite valid.

As he said on CNBC from the floor of the Chicago exchange in response to the rapidly growing we'll-bail-out-anyone tidal wave "Cuba used to have mansions and a relatively decent economy. They moved from the individual to the collective. Now they're driving '54 Chevys -- maybe the last great car to come out of Detroit!"

Remember the quote that's often mis-attributed to Thomas Jefferson but actually came from Gerald Ford in 1974 (a another troublesome economic period in our history) “A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have."

Will our big and growing government end up taking everything we have?

Today's parallels to Ayn Rand's book "Atlas Shrugged" are both amazing and a bit scary.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Found the following seven principles from a February 11th meeting recap of the Bastiat Society where Larry Reed addressed the group in Charleston, SC.

These are great guiding words with which to measure the actions our government is falling over itself to put in motion.

1. Free people are not equal, and equal people are not free. Think about this for a minute or two.

2. What is yours, you tend to take care of; what everyone owns, everyone tends to ignore. My Mom used to tell me this all the time and I thought it was just here way of getting me to pay for my own wishes!

3. Sound economics requires looking at the long run, and considering the effects on more than just a few. Instant gratification is so non existent in the long run!

4. If you encourage something you get more of it; if you discourage something, you get less of it. My dog taught me this lesson.

6. A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have. A quote from Thomas Jefferson

7. Liberty makes all the difference in the world. Patrick Henry preferred death if liberty were to be withheld.

It’s hard to step back from the swirl the media creates and to which we’re drawn as if moths to a flame. But step back we must in order to find the wherewithal to ask questions of our government’s current actions and to measure those actions against principles such as these seven.

For similar minded comments and essays, check out http://bastiatblog.blogspot.com/.